If Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s nook and the decade long rumours about Apple releasing a tablet product haven’t whet your appetite for the promised new digital age of magazine and newspaper publishing then this demonstration video of a digital Sports Illustrated magazine from Time Inc and The Wonderfactory just might do the trick. The demonstration shows the future of magazine publishing incorporating video clips, interactivity, branded content, games, content sharing and rich, interactive advertising possibilities – which looks and sounds an awful lot like the websites of today to me!

I’ll never read a magazine or newspaper through a piece of glass. Give me paper, but make the information ON the paper useful, interesting, valuable, compelling and worth reading. Sadly, most magazines and newspapers have taken the cheap path, dumbed-down coverage, fired good reporters and writers, etc. They don’t understand the competition and have no idea how to survive.

These new products for reading books, mags and newspapers are cool but I think most people would like to get their issues to their mobile or computer… no need for so many gadgets. Anyway this probably is the future of magazines although who know if print will die or if this will be parallel as are mag websites today…

WTF. Publishers (Time Warner, News Ltd, etc) have had decades to do the same shit online and they haven’t. And if the device shown is their own, you just know they’re going to lock in users with pricey subscription models (with content that you can get elsewhere for free… yeah, that’s right Rupert, free).

I might be a little naive but I don’t think it’s the same as a website. The reader/user sits back and flicks through content rather than having to actively search for info. It’s not going to be cheap but if well executed with videos, good articles, photos… it could make for an engaging if not entertaining experience. Websites aren’t entertaining, it’s the content that is.

Martini says “I don?t think it?s the same as a website”. You’re right there, it’s not the same as any website from today – it looks more like a big clunky website from the mid 90s. I just don’t get it? And as others have quite rightly pointed out, where is the social element?

I don’t think we should mix our metaphors here. This demo purely illustrates what is possible in a digital (application) format (regardless of the delivery platform – Kindle, ePaper, or iTouch tablet).

The Time Warner magazine app (which is in the demo) is powered by Adobe AIR and has a multitude of features, including an extremely powerful on (and off) line capability (allowing the user to take content on-the-go without the need for a network connection).

Still not convinced? The New York Times Reader 2.0 (http://timesreader.nytimes.com/timesreader/index.html), also powered by Adobe AIR, was released earlier this year and currently being bundled with some new models of Samsung Netbooks. FWIW the New York Times Reader 2.0 this week won the Digital Publishing & Advertising Awards (DPAC) – Best Digital Publishing/Content Platform Award (http://www.dpacawards.com/)